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ATLANTA - After years of tinkering with its upscale designer showroom format, Home Depot now plans to significantly scale back its 54-unit Expo Design Center business. The world's largest home improvement retailer will shut more than a third of its Expo stores within the year-selling off 15 locations, while five other stores are being converted to a traditional orange box.
Somewhat surprisingly, some of the markets that will be losing Expo stores are in typically strong metro areas, including Chicago, Houston and Buckhead, a trendy Atlanta suburb.
"In some areas there is just not a market presence for Expo," said Home Depot spokesman David Sandor.
The elusive Expo customer has been quite a challenge to figure out. Earlier this year Home Depot said it would not open any new Expo locations as it continued to invest in, and modify, the core of its Expo business; namely, project management, including the design and installation of kitchens, baths and other remodeling projects. About 70 percent of Expo's revenue is from projects and services rather than just standard merchandise sales.
"Those changes have been effective, in certain cases though, we certainly were not meeting our strategic objectives over time," Sandor said.
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